Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit
The Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit at Parkville has been established as a consequence of the procurement of major funding via the Federal government Education Investment Fund (EIF) and the Victorian State government Victoria’s Science Agenda (VSA) Investment Fund, together with funds provided by the University of Melbourne and FINMH. The Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit is led by Professor Roger Ordidge, Chair of Imaging Sciences.
Although the Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit is based around imaging machines, the consortium places emphasis on being engaged with the scientific community to enable appropriate usage of the technologies. In combination, these advanced imaging technologies will lead to advances in the diagnosis and hopefully, the eventual treatment of a wide range of neurological disorder. This necessitates close collaboration between University of Melbourne scientists and engineers and those in associated institutes, public teaching hospitals, and national and international centres of research excellence.
Chair of Imaging Science, University of Melbourne: Professor Roger Ordidge
Siemens PET-CT scanner
The Imaging Unit within the Melbourne Brain Centre at Parkville houses a state-of-the-art PET-CT scanner, which has been funded under the umbrella of a successful VSA bid submitted by the Victorian Biomedical Imaging Consortium (VBIC). Radiopharmaceuticals can be scanned in order to study tissue function and metabolism and novel biomarkers are being used to study brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. The system can provide time-of-flight measurements and has an extended field of view PET with 128-slice CT.
The senior molecular imaging technologist is Rob Williams.
Senior Molecular Imaging Technologist
Siemens 7Tesla MRI
The University of Melbourne is a partner in a successful EIF3 application under the umbrella of the National Imaging Facility (NIF). The NIF is a national collaborative facility envisioned to provide openly accessible world-class facilities for basic imaging research allowing Australia to remain at the forefront in imaging-related science. The lead agent for the bid is the University of Queensland. The participating partners, which include the University of Melbourne, have established the NIF into an integrated network across 5 states providing landmark capabilities in animal and ultra high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetoencephalography. The 7T MRI scanner was installed on the ground floor of the Melbourne Brain Centre at Parkville in March 2014. This will provide unprecedented image quality in human brain imaging that will be used to study both normal and abnormal brains.
Director, Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit
+61 3 8344 1953